WBTVs Dedrick Russell interviews VIPs Bob Diamond about his petition to appoint a Special Prosecutor in Mecklenburg County, because their DA refuses to prosecute confirmed cases of interstate double voting.

“We took this action because Mr. Murray refused to prosecute interstate double voters that we investigated and that the State Board of Elections referred to him for criminal prosecution,” said Jay DeLancy, Director of the Voter Integrity Project, “but he said he was too busy to bother with such low-level crimes.”

As a Class I felony, stealing elections in North Carolina falls below the Class H felony of stealing pine straw (as VIP explained, on April 1, 2016). The maximum penalty for a first-time vote fraud offender does not include active jail time. Pasco Parker, VIP’s first convicted case, received a two-year probation after voting in three states (Florida, Tennessee and North Carolina) for the 2016 general election.

If President Trump is serious about fighting vote fraud, then he should withdraw Andrew Murray’s nomination for US Attorney,” said DeLancy. “Murray didn’t prosecute interstate double voting as the DA, so his being US Attorney would be a disaster.”

DeLancy and Bob Diamond, a Charlotte resident and former District 37 NC Senate candidate, first met with Murray on Feb. 23, 2015, after learning from state election officials that Murray had declined to prosecute one of VIP’s criminal referrals. After the meeting, Diamond decided to pursue this action. He is listed as the plaintiff in today’s court filing, which identified the alleged perpetrators as Jenell R. Jenkins (registered as a Democrat) and Sammy K. Nichols (registered as a Republican), both of Mecklenburg County.

“By refusing to prosecute these cases, District Attorneys promote the myth that no one commits voter fraud,” said Diamond. “This is why I’m asking the Mecklenburg County Superior Court to appoint a special prosecutor, who will do the job Murray refuses to do.”

According to an email message from NCSBE Chief Investigator, Joan Fleming, the cases of both Jenkins and Nichols were initially declined in 2015 and were later updated and re-submitted for consideration by letter dated March 8, 2016. Murray again declined “due to lack of evidence of intent, lack of prosecutorial resources for low level felony matters, and because the SBE investigations had the overall positive net effect of causing both voters to cancel their duplicate registrations.”

“We’re glad that these two people are now afraid to commit vote fraud,” said Diamond, “but others will never be deterred unless cases like these are tried in open court.”

###

See Murray-Fleming email that confirms NCSBE criminal referrals to Mecklenburg DA Andrew Murray. These two cases were for interstate double voting, but Murray declined to prosecute either case.

UPDATE TO STORY: DA Murray excuses double voters after they claimed ignorance of the law they broke (by voting in two states). Would a jury have excused them too? We will never know, since Murray refused to try cases. See Charlotte-Observer story by clicking here.